Monday, November 15, 2010

Pillows, pillows and more pillows

As I said earlier this month, blogging daily about stitching can be a challenge. Stitching, by its very nature, takes time. Working full-time and maintaining a household tends to interfere with stitching time ... consequently, there just isn't enough current stitching to fill daily posts. So, I find myself resorting to a series of photo essays about projects done in the past. Today's photo essay will be devoted to pillows. I love piling throw pillows on beds and sofas ... a tendency my husband deplores. If I had my way, I'd finish anything not frame-worthy as a pillow and we'd have to devote an entire room to their storage. In deference to my husband's preferences, I have reluctantly added totes, stand-ups, quilts, bell-pulls, wall hangings and the other non-pillow finishes to my bag of tricks.

Nonetheless, I do have many, many pillows and here are a few:

First, on the left is my all time favorite, the very first Homespun Elegance design I ever stitched, Sampler Patches, from the Plain and Fancy Collection. This was stitched when over-dyes were just coming on the market and long before I found an on-line source for GAST and WDW. I used a Needle Necessities over-dyed floss instead of the recommended GAST but it turned out all right anyway. On the right is a free chart, again, I forget the designer, no longer have the chart and can't find a mention of it in my stitching journals ... so it must be very, very old: before I started keeping records. For some reason, the name Plum Pudding Designs comes to mind, but I am really not sure.

A couple of Halloween pillows: the first from Glory Bee and the second from the Tall Bird series from Heart in Hand. Both were stitched on the recommended linen with the recommended fibers. Fun and funky stitches for one of my favorite holidays.

It's been so long since I stitched this one, that I can't remember the name of the design/designer but it looks like a Glory Bee to me ... I seem to recall that the tall skinny house is one of Nancy's motifs though Blackbird Designs also uses them, of course, usually in conjunction with a blackbird ... I couldn't find mention of this in any of my old stitching journals and the chart is long gone ... so we'll just have to call it a mystery pillow. And on the right is a piece I stitched up as a souvenir of one of our many visits to Maine. All I remember at this point is that the chart was purchased from Willow's End, a now defunct LNS [Boothbay Harbor].

A couple of complimentary charts from Little House Needleworks: Star Light, Star Bright and Summer House. These simple little designs were stitched in the recommended GAST and WDW on whatever linen scraps I had available but I added a few beads or embellishments for greater interest and texture.